The present invention targets systems and apparatuses in which contents are reproduced/perused with a large volume of the contents as a target. Additionally, herein, the so-called content is a content having a time axis including a video content that is comprised of video/audio signals such as a CGM (Consumer Generated Media) content, a home video, a television program and a movie, and an audio content that is comprised of audio signals such as music.
As a system in which contents are reproduced/perused with a large volume of the contents as a target, there exists, for example, a video sharing service (video hosting site) on Internet. The video sharing service (video hosting site) is a site in which a general user can upload the video contents into a server and a large number of the users can reproduce/peruse the uploaded video contents.
Further, there also exists the service (site) in which the user can cross-search the video contents of a plurality of different video sharing services (video hosting sites) to reproduce/peruse these video contents. Further, there also exists the video search service (video search site) in which the user can search and reproduce/peruse the video contents with all of the video contents on Internet as a target. In these services (sites), the user reproduces/peruses the video contents without being aware of physical locations of the video contents (also when, as a matter of fact, the video contents are dispersed to a plurality of different servers).
It is characteristic of such a video sharing service (video hosting site) on Internet that the contents each having identical details or the contents in which the sections are partially identical to each other exist in a plural number. The reason is that the topical videos are uploaded by the different users in some cases and the videos are uploaded into the different video sharing services (video hosting sites) in some cases. At this moment, converting the contents, each of which has identical details, into the contents each having a different video format or data size (bit rate) causes the contents each having a different quality to exist. Further, the contents that are identical to each other in only one part of the section exist because one part of the section is extracted and edited.
Additionally, there also exist the content sharing service (content hosting site) on Internet that targets not only the video contents but also the music contents (audio contents) as the content sharing service (content hosting site) mentioned above. Further, there also exists the video sharing service utilizing P2P (peer-to-peer) communication besides such a form of a website by the server.